


Simple

by an_ardent_rain



Category: Persona 4
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-17
Updated: 2015-11-17
Packaged: 2018-05-02 01:09:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5228102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/an_ardent_rain/pseuds/an_ardent_rain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The choice is simple: being in different cities is easy when the alternative is not being together at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Simple

**Author's Note:**

> Note that in this story I've written Naoto identifying as female, she/her pronouns.
> 
> Also wow writing about a culture not your own is hard. I researched chopstick etiquette for a long time, for example, and I'm not sure that even made it into the story! I apologize in advance for any other egregious cultural errors. I tried to make the use of honorifics and how the characters refer to each other in line with the english translation of the game, so hopefully it at least veers near to canon. 
> 
> Also this had a point and I very, very quickly lost it? It takes place during... sometime cold! In the school year after the one in-game.
> 
> And I use Yu, not Souji, just because that's what I'm most familiar with.

Kanji takes a small package wrapped in soft brown paper from the pocket of his coat.  “Uh… Here,” he says, shoving it at Naoto.  She takes it in curled fingers with a soft smile that makes Kanji’s whole face turn red.  “Go on and open it,” he says.  “You don’t gotta wait ‘til you get on the train.”

 

“All right.”  Naoto carefully tugs one end of the red and white striped string wrapped around it, untying the bow and then pulling the string away.  The paper crinkles in her hands and she is careful not to tear it as she unfolds.  Nestled in the package is a thick, woolen scarf with tassels on either end.  It is navy blue, and unadorned apart from a knitted cable striped down its center.  She squeezes it, letting her fingertips smooth over the soft, nubbly yarn.

 

“I made it,” Kanji says, unnecessarily.  “Thought it might, you know…  Help keep you warm.”

 

“It is a very thoughtful gift.”  She grabs one end and holds it up, letting the length of the scarf unfurl down towards the ground.  It’s long, nearly as tall as she is.  Kanji takes the wrapping from her, balling it up and putting it back into his pocket.  Naoto carefully winds the scarf around her slender neck, letting the ends hang down heavy over her shoulders.  It covers her chin and she closes her eyes, dipping her head down to bury her face in the folds.  “Ahh.”  She glances over to Yu and Yosuke, then looks up at Kanji, her cheeks flush with color.  “It smells like the textile shop.”

 

“Uh…  ‘s where I knitted it,” Kanji says.  He shuffles his feet and keeps his eyes on the ground.  When he breathes out, the heavy air appears like a white puff in front of his mouth.  “Damn it, I should have washed it or something, I’m sorry.”

 

“Don’t apologize,” Naoto says.  She puts a hand on his forearm for a second, offering him a warm smile when he finally tilts his head up to meet her eyes.  “It is a familiar scent and I’m sure I will find it comforting.  Indeed, it reminds me of you, Kanji-kun.”

 

Both their faces darken and Yosuke coughs conspicuously into his hand, reminding them they’re not alone.

 

Yu smiles.  “Don’t I get a present?” he asks.  His smile widens as Yosuke rolls his eyes.  “I want something that smells like you.”

 

Yosuke huffs.  “You’re so weird, partner.  And didn’t Nanako-chan give you some candy for the train ride?  That’s a great present!”  He crosses his arms over his chest, standing as close to Yu as he dares.  Yu just keeps smiling, and moves his foot so it’s against Yosuke’s.  Yosuke shakes his head.  “Ugh.  So weird.  Try not to miss me too much, okay?”

 

“Yeah.”  Yu presses his lips together, rolling them in to wet them with the tip of his tongue.  “I’ll call you tonight when I get home, okay?”

 

“Okay.”  Yosuke takes a step back and lets his arms fall to his sides - it’s too much to be so close to him and be unable to close the distance.  He lets his hand brush across the hem of Yu’s coat.  “Talk to you then.”

 

“Senpai,” Naoto says, “it’s time to board.  Goodbye Yosuke-senpai.  And…  goodbye, Kanji-kun.”  Their hands clasp together briefly, a look of unguarded affection on Kanji’s face.  When Naoto lets go he takes a deep breath and squares his big shoulders.

 

“Bye,” he says, voice rough.  “I’ll talk to you soon!”

 

“Bye Kanji,” Yu says, offering him a short wave.  He’s stepping onto the train when Yosuke stops him.

 

“Yu!” he calls, voice loud.  His cheeks are pink and he looks nervously from left to right nervously, one hand extended like he’s reaching out.  “I…”

 

“I know,” Yu says.  And how can Yu know what he meant, Yosuke thinks, when he wasn’t even sure.  “Me, too.”  He waves again, smiles with one side of his mouth.  “Goodbye!”

 

“Yeah.”  Yosuke breathes, watching as Yu disappears onto the train.  “Goodbye.”

 

He and Kanji stay silent, watching until the train disappears away from the Yasoinaba station, carrying the people they love away from them.

 

“Man,” Kanji says.  He rubs the back of his neck.  “What a shitty day.”  He straightens the knit cap he’s wearing and exhales, letting out a puff of air into the chilly morning.  “Don’t think it’s gonna rain today so no beef bowl, but d’you wanna go to Aiya for lunch?  I could use some food.”

 

Yosuke shrugs.  “Sure,” he says, stuffing his hands into his pockets, which are lined with a soft fleece.  It’s cold, but not unbearable, and the walk would help him get his mind off Yu.  It’s a little embarrassing to be so tangled up in someone, to feel an emptiness just minutes after he was gone.  At least Kanji’s in the same boat, he assures himself.  Kanji is as wrapped up in Naoto, tongue-tied and still in quiet disbelief over the reciprocation.  He’s not… that bad, he tells himself, looking over at Kanji walking stiff legged beside him.  He and Yu have been together longer - were together even before they were… _together_.  That must make a difference, he thinks, helps  him endure the ache with more dignity.  

 

“So,” Kanji says, finally breaking the silence, his voice light and almost painfully casual.  “It’s gonna be hard now that they’re gone again.  Seems like just as soon as I get used to having her around again, she has to leave.  And it sucks that Yu-senpai has to leave, too.  Not that, uh.  Not that I’ll miss him as much as you will.”  He rubs his nose and then laughs.  “Man.  Guess you’d never thought this would happen, huh?  Me bein’ the one with a girl and you dating a guy.”

 

Yosuke isn’t sure if that’s meant to sting.  There aren’t many people out on the streets, but he still can’t help but check to see if anyone could have overheard.  It does sting, a little, and he gets instantly defensive even though he knows Kanji’s not that kind of person, wouldn’t want to hurt him even if he deserved it.  Yosuke knows that he deserves it.

 

“Shut up,” he says, sharp but without heat.

 

Kanji huffs.  “I’m not tryin’ to - “  
  


“I know,” Yosuke says quickly, “but I don’t want to talk about it.”

 

They’ve made it to Aiya, luckily, and Kanji’s voice is barely more than a mutter when he says “As if that ain’t obvious.”

 

It’s warm inside and there are enough other customers that there’s a comforting buzz of ambient noise around them from the chatter.  The light in Aiya is a soft yellow, not very bright, and it casts a golden glow over everything.  Yosuke takes off his coat when he and Kanji take their seats.  No one is paying attention to them, wrapped up in their own conversations, and he feels a little better than he did outside, where the wind sliced straight to bone and the streets were gray and bare.

 

“I wasn’t trying to be an ass,” Kanji says, looking at their table with furrowed brows, obviously referring to what he’d said about their respective significant others.  “I mean…  It’s just kinda ironic, is all.  And you gotta admit it was kind of shocking you and senpai got together at all, the way you are about this kind of stuff.”

 

Yosuke’s not sure if Kanji means dealing with feelings in general or his own sexuality when he says “this kind of stuff,” but Yosuke’s aware that in either arena he’s proven pretty inadequate.  He wonders if maybe he should defend himself, or remind Kanji firmly they are not talking about it.  But then their food comes to the table and he watches as Kanji hunches over his bowl of noodles, close enough to feel the steam on his face, his mouth puckered in a frown.  “It… just kind of happened,” Yosuke says, grabbing his chopsticks.

 

Kanji looks up at him, expectant, but Yosuke isn’t sure he’s up to elaborating.  There’s more to say, certainly, about how the two of them finally, _finally_ fell together, how it was the most terrified and the surest he’d ever been about anything when he kissed Yu for the first time, how nothing made as much sense as being with him.  They’d both been reticent when it came to the details of that initial transition from friends to more - Yosuke because as Kanji had observed, he was awful at “this kind of stuff,’ and Yu because…  Well, everyone had mostly stopped expecting detail about nearly anything personal from Yu.

 

_It just kind of happened_.  That is both true and simplifying the situation down to its barest bones, which is the only way Yosuke can think to easily explain something that isn’t simple at all.  They’d both pined and danced around each other until it had seemed, to Yosuke at least, that the crossing of that threshold was both inevitable and impossibly out of reach.

 

But he clears his throat to continue, because even if Kanji hadn’t said it in so many words, Yosuke had been insensitive and pretty awful to him about his shadow.  If he was curious, Yosuke felt like maybe he owed him some sort of explanation.  “We both kind of knew, after awhile, even if we didn’t say anything, even if we didn’t exactly know what we knew.”  He feels embarrassed, suddenly, to be talking about it with more feeling than he intended, and the back of his neck flushes red with heat.  “It made sense like…  Well, it just made sense.  We weren’t happy not being together, so we decided to try being together instead.  It uh…”  His whole face heats up and he ducks down, away from Kanji’s eye.  “It’s worked out pretty well so far.”

 

“You do make him… happy,” Kanji says, voice tinged with something Yosuke thinks sounds a little too like surprise.  And he’s offended on his behalf, but he also kind of… gets it.  How it’s hard to believe any one person could be enough for Yu, who’s something so special, something a little apart from the rest of them.  “I don’t…  Man, don’t take this the wrong way,” Kanji continues, and Yosuke already knows he probably will.  “But it kinda sucks to be the you or me in a relationship.”

 

“What the hell does that mean?”

 

Kanji’s face reddens and he says “Y-you know…  To be the one everyone is surprised the other one’s with.  Like in your case it’s okay, though, because pretty much everybody would get some looks being with somebody great as Yu-senpai, but.  But there probably are people out there good enough for Naoto, and.  There are a hell of a lot of guys out there better than me.”  He rubs his nose and looks down at the table.  His cheeks are still red and Yosuke almost feels a little bad for the guy.  “She’s never…  I mean, she never pressures me to be better, you know?  Says that I’m find like I am.  That…  I’m enough.  For her.  That I just gotta be me.”

 

The atmosphere seems tense after Kanji goes silent and Yosuke eats his lunch for a few minutes, neither of them bothering to speak.  He doesn’t spend a lot of time with Kanji, just the two of them, and he wonders if maybe they have more in common than he thought.  “About what you were saying,” he starts.  “I uh…”  He looks away again.  “I know what you mean.”  He thinks about Yu, laughing, saying he’s the lucky one, not Yosuke.  How proud Yu seems of him, even when he can’t even stand to walk close together in public sometimes.  Those smiles that make him feel so good and so, so guilty - because how could he ever be worthy of them?

 

Kanji doesn’t seem to notice how tense he’s gotten.  “It’s hard, right?  Being with her is great, don’t get me wrong, but the long distance thing on top of everything else.  People say it won’t work, that it’ll just make things more difficult and won’t be worth it in the long run.”  His knee is bouncing under the table and he can’t quite stay still in his seat.  “You and senpai…  I mean, you do long distance, right?  That’s gotta have some problems.  I mean…  It’s gotta be hard.”

 

Yosuke shrugs.  “Not really.”  Kanji stares at him, incredulous, and Yosuke rolls his eyes.  “I didn’t say it was easy.  Not…  Not exactly.  Yeah, I’d prefer if he was here with me like all the time, but.”  He exhales, and feels a sense of calm settle in his chest.  Being apart is something Yosuke has never worried about.  Talking about this is easy.  “We deal with it.  After we graduate we can probably be together, and even if we can’t we’ll deal with it then, too.  We have to.  The alternative is not being with him.”  He shrugs again.  “So…”

 

“Oh.”  Kanji steals a long look at him out of the corner of his eye.  Yosuke feels self-conscious, and he can’t read the expression on Kanji’s face.  “That simple, huh?”

 

What kind of question is that, Yosuke wonders.  The self-consciousness is making him irritable, as well, and he scowls over at Kanji before he answers.  “Yes,” he says.  “That simple.”  Yu has seen his shadow.  He’s fought with Yu, he’s taken blows for Yu, he knows Yu as well as he knows himself.  They are best friends.   _Partners_.  Even if now they sit closer, if now they can touch instead of only wishing they could, whatever’s at the base, whatever’s the foundation of their relationship, has stayed the same.

 

Kanji gives him a half-smile and then turns his attention back to the remains of his lunch.  “I think I know exactly what you mean.”

**Author's Note:**

> Dang, give me all the Kanji-Yosuke bro time.
> 
>  
> 
> [tumblr](http://librarian-repellent.tumblr.com)


End file.
